On the occasion of the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance

66 Syrian organizations: The International community must put an end to the enforced disappearance in Syria

By: REUTERS/ Pierre Albouy

[30 August 2017] – In a letter addressed and delivered today to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid bin Ra’ad Al-Hussein, local civil society and human rights organizations called for an end of the tragedy of tens of thousands of forcibly disappeared people in Syria, and for the support by all possible means to the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to assist in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the most serious crimes committed in Syria since March 2011.
The letter signed by 66 Syrian organizations active in the fields of human rights and civil society, called on the international community to assume its responsibilities and take crucial steps towards reaching a just political solution for the conflict in Syria, stressing on the need for an immediate end to these practices, releasing all detainees and bringing those responsible for these violations to trial.

On the occasion of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearance, the letter highlighted part of the harsh suffering of Syrian families from abduction and arbitrary detention by the Syrian regime in particular and all parties to the conflict in general.
The Syrian organizations expressed their deep sense of pain and disappointment resulting from the international community’s neglect and disregard for these crimes that have been used to silence tens of thousands of voices in detention centers during the years of conflict in Syria.

The signing organizations demanded the cause of the forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained in Syria to be considered as a humanitarian crisis, and to be addressed as an indispensable part of the declared ‘Level 3’ humanitarian emergency in Syria. They also called for exerting all possible pressure on the Security Council to take all measures possible to stop all crimes and violations committed in Syria; as well as establishing a joint international committee of the United Nations and the Syrian civil society in order to uncover the fate of those who disappeared forcibly, and reveal the sites of mass graves and analyze the human remains in order to identify the victims.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights, founded in June 2011, is a non-governmental, non-profit independent organization that is a primary source for the United Nations on all death toll-related statistics in Syria